Stem Cells: Developing off the Shelf Therapeutics

Session Overview

Stem cells have the ability to differentiate into more specialised cells and proliferate by mitosis when cultured under certain physiological conditions. The use and development of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) has many distinct benefits to cellular and molecular human disease research (and toxicity testing) and consequently excellent animal replacement potential for many different research areas.

Session Chair: Dr Pascale V Guillot

Senior Lecturer in Fetal and Maternal Health (University College London)

Dr Pascale V Guillot is a stem cell biologist at University College London, where she was first to reprogram human cells back to functional pluripotency using chemicals alone, without ectopic expression of transcription factors. After a PhD in Paris, France, and a first postdoctoral training with Dr Mary Lyon at Harwell Laboratories (Didcot, UK) to develop her expertise in gene mapping, she went to Harvard Medical School (Boston MA, US) and the National Institute of Health (Washington DC, US). Back in the UK, she is using induced mesenchymal stem cells, derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, to delineate the molecular mechanisms by which stem cell mediate their tissue repair capacity.